PSC bill signal of bigger issues in the pipeline
Editorial Story updated at 8:54 PM on Friday, March 17, 2006
If usurping the power of the Georgia Public Service Commission is such a good idea, why did the Republican contingent of a state Senate committee feel it had to engage in parliamentary hijinks to get a vote on a bill to do just that?
In its current form, the legislation in question – House Bill 1325 – would dictate how the PSC is to handle a request from Atlanta Gas Light for a $300 million pipeline project. The utility would fund the project with a fee of approximately $2.50 tacked on to its residential and small-business customers’ monthly bills for the next 30 years.
The bill was in front of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee Wednesday.
According to a report on that meeting in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, committee Chairman Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, told a packed meeting room the committee would hear testimony, but wouldn’t vote on the measure. But when testimony concluded and the room began to empty, Seabaugh announced there would be a vote.
The bill passed out of the committee on an 8-0 tally. Two Democratic committee members who were on hand for testimony didn’t get back to cast a vote, while three Republican committee members who didn’t attend were somehow able to make it in time for the vote.
The Public Service Commission is an elected body that regulates the utility companies operating in the state. By attempting to use the legislative process to tell the commission how to do its job, the sponsors and supporters of House Bill 1325 are, in effect, working to subvert an arm of the state’s duly elected government.
That ought to be enough for the full Senate to reject the bill. If it’s not, then senators should remain mindful of the chicanery employed to get the proposal in front of them.Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 031706
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/031706/opinion_20060317021.shtml
